


Madeline Dursley

by bricksandstrings



Series: The Odd Ones [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, My First Work in This Fandom, please be kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 21:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4802411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bricksandstrings/pseuds/bricksandstrings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dudley could count the best parts of his life on one hand but sometimes his past had a real interesting way of coming back to haunt him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madeline Dursley

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea why it took me so long to start writing for my favorite fandom but here we go! I do not own Harry Potter nor any of its characters, that all goes to the wonderful J.K. Rowling.  
> Please feel free to review!

Whenever he looked back on his life so far Dudley Dursley found himself with very mixed emotions. On one hand he had come to realize that he had been a completely horrible child and a terrible teenager. It was only after the ‘Dementor Incident,’ as it was to forever be referred now, that he slowly had begun to change. By the time he had managed to stumble his way into a university he had begun to understand that all those years he had not only harmed other people, but also himself. His first day of school as a college student he had found himself in over his head in his math class, being so used to either bullying his classmates into giving him the answers to homework and tests or his father bullying his professors into passing him. So naturally the first thing he did was pick the weakest, yet smartest looking student of the class and cornered him in a hallway with a raised fist and a demand for all the answers to the homework assignment. Not only did this student give him all the wrong answers but as it turns out he was good friends with Dudley’s roommate, who was even bigger and meaner than Dudley.   
There were similar incidents in all his other classes and soon a threat from the dean of students to have him kicked out of school if he didn’t clean up his act, no amount of threatening from his father could change it. The normal response would have been for him to demand to move to a new school, however no other university had wanted him with his grades and reputation. As it turns out some of the teachers at his secondary school had not written very stellar recommendation letters to say the least.   
With his past haunting him like a literal ghost Dudley turned to the proper form of help and began to visit the student center where tutoring was provided to students in need. A few were willing to put up with him and slowly his grades were dragged out of the dirt. One of those tutors was a girl named Ginger.  
Ginger was a year ahead of Dudley, with dark honey-colored hair and a quiet laugh. She was a vegetarian and he became one as well just to impress her which conveniently helped him lose quite a bit of weight. She sat patiently with him as he struggled with his work and the one time he completely lost his temper she decked him, Dudley’s rather impressive black eye acting as testimony. His parents adored her to say the least had her parents were somewhat skeptical but apparently could see whatever good Ginger seemed to see in Dudley.   
And then there came the day he had to discuss his cousin.  
But as it turned out not only did she accept that Dudley’s cousin Harry was a wizard but that she had already known about magic.  
“My great grandmother was a squib from the Bones family and we always kept in good terms with that side of the family tree. Actually now that I think about it I think my cousin Susan went to school with your cousin! Isn’t that funny?  
When his parents learned his father became somewhat less charmed by Ginger and her positive attitude towards magic folk, his mother pursed her lips and said nothing at all. Ginger’s parents however upon hearing about Harry seemed to change their mind and accept Dudley with open arms.   
The more time he spend with Ginger the more bewildering he found it to meet normal people who knew all about the wizarding world and had found it acceptable. At their wedding he made sure that the surviving members of the Bones family were in attendance along with the Weasleys.   
His parents did little to hide their disgust but it was his odd attempt at bridging the gap for Ginger’s sake. She was big on family and concerned about his relationship with Harry. To say the wedding was an awkward affair would have been a vast understatement however the album photos Dudley felt were worth it.   
Ginger became everything he needed. She watched his diet like a hawk and had convinced him to try anger management counseling. She supported him when he chose to leave the job his father had gotten him in favor for joining a friend in a startup company that acted as a middleman between appliance companies and manufacturers, a business venture that had proven quite successful.   
There was no doubt in Dudley’s mind that out of everything that summed up to be the measure of his life Ginger was one of the best things that ever happened to him.  
The first of three to be exact.  
The second was his first born Calvin.   
Dudley was never more aware just how precious another individual could be until he held his newborn for the first time, promising to himself that in no way shape or form could he let his son be as terrible as he was. Petunia cried with joy at becoming a grandmother while Vernon Dursley was so proud he passed cigars out to the patrons of the hospital waiting room. Three days after they came home from the hospital Dudley found an owl sitting on his windowsill. He fed the creature some crackers as payment for its efforts then read the words of congratulations sent by Harry and his wife Ginny.   
Calvin was the spitting image of his father, showing potential for a mean streak by the age of three. After one particularly harrowing day when he poured grape juice all over the head of his infant cousin Albus, Ginger grabbed her son by the collar of his shirt and dragged him inside, the fiery anger that had once earned Dudley a black eye now burned again in her eyes. Three minutes later a very tearful Calvin came out and was made to apologize for what he had done.  
Thankfully Calvin grew out of the mean streak and proved to have mellow personality quite similar to his mother’s. He gained a love of rugby but in his free time read comics like they were going out of style, Dudley finding himself standing in many a line to buy some rare or special edition for the sake of a birthday or Christmas. Dudley loved his son and wanted to give him everything he could while still being fearful that he would turn his son into a mini him if Dudley was not too careful.   
The third best thing in Dudley’s life was last but not least his darling little Madeline.   
Madeline was two months younger than his niece Lilly and had her mother’s honey hair with facial features reminiscent of her grandmother Petunia. She had a tiny little laugh and his strong personality, to say the least the girl had her father wrapped around her little finger.   
So it was understandable that one day when Madeline was five, Dudley came home from work and found his wife staring at the ceiling. He looked up to see tiny Madeline looking down at them with her favorite doll in hand shouting “look, daddy look!”  
Dudley was fairly certain he had a mild heart attack that evening.  
They called Aunt Susan who came and got the child down from the ceiling before fixing a very strong cup of tea for Ginger. Meanwhile Dudley took a long swig of scotch down at the local pub and began to contemplate what to do next.  
His parents were completely horrified, his mother crying and his father raging mad. They had been so certain then had done fine with Dudley, that he had grown up ok. But no, the magic had simply skipped a generation or two. They blamed themselves, they tried to blame Ginger’s side of the family but with that Dudley found himself roaring at his parents in unbridled fury, appalled that they would dare say something against his wife.   
“Listen son calm down,” his fathered stammered. “I know you’re worried but listen, you have to squash it out of her! We failed with Harry because he was able to go to that wizard school but you have a chance to do your daughter right! You have to be tough with her but she will thank you in the end!”  
Dudley took one long look down his parent’s hallway, at a certain cupboard under the stairs that he never realized until now was incredibly tiny.   
The next day Aunt Susan came back over along with Uncle Harry, Aunt Ginny, and Aunt Hermione. Dudley sat them all in the living room and looked at his cousin with all the bewilderment and fear he felt in his body. Harry took a deep breath and began a very long conversation with Dudley and Ginger about what would come next, Susan and Ginny stepping in to explain things whenever they could. An hour latter Ginger got up to refill the teapot and found Hermione sitting at the kitchen table with Madeline, explain the do’s and don’ts of using magic when you had non-magical parents.   
As time went on it became apparent that Vernon and Petunia had decided to just pretend they only had one grandchild. Often sending Calvin surprise gifts and taking him on trips to the park and the zoo at any unexpected time as if to make it clear that he was special and Madeline was not. It was one day that Petunia had called to say they couldn’t make it to Madeline’s seventh birthday party that things finally came to a head.  
“But you came to Calvin’s party,” Ginger pointed out over the phone.  
“ Well yes dear but you see Vernon has been so wrapped up in meetings and I-”  
“Just pulled Calvin out of school without Dudley's or my permission to take him out for ice cream yesterday.”  
“Well we wanted to celebrate his good grades and-”  
“But Madeline is one of the brightest in her class.”  
“But she has ways of getting those good grades that don’t require hard work.”  
“Did you just accuse my daughter of using magic to cheat in school?”  
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of the possibility Ginger.”  
“No actually I haven’t. I help her and Calvin with their studies every evening so I know for a fact it comes from hard work. Don’t worry about the party, or taking Calvin to the Sea Life center next month. Don’t worry about Christmas or Easter, until you can love your grandchildren equally don’t worry about them at all!”  
The next day Ginger had Vernon and Petunia removed from the children’s contact forms at school. Calvin was upset he couldn’t spend time with his grandparents anymore but more so when he realized for the first time that it meant to not love people equally.   
Three months later Petunia called asking Dudley if she could take both children out for lunch. Vernon still wanted nothing to do with Madeline but Dudley would be lying if he said he didn’t cry with relief after his mother’s phone call.  
The summer of Madeline’s eleventh birthday a very familiar letter showed up in the beak of an owl on Dudley’s windowsill but addressed to Madeline’s bedroom. The excited little girl ran around screaming for joy while Calvin sat glumly poking his breakfast with a fork.   
Ginger and Dudley had been preparing for this. While Madeline and her mother went to Aunt Susan’s house to share the news Dudley sat down with his son and explained that while Calvin didn’t have magic he was no less special and had just as much potential for greatness.   
“Your mother and I made sure you were enrolled in one of the premier secondary schools in the country so you have every chance for a proper education. You like that school right?”  
“Yes,” Calvin mumbled.  
“Good, because neither I nor your mother got you there, we just did the paperwork.”  
This made Calvin sit up and look at his father.  
“You are in one of the best school’s in the country because your grades in primary school got you there. You’re on the school Rugby Team because your athletic skills got you there. You're already showing how amazing a person you’re going to be because of skills and talents that you have, not your sister.  
Ginger and Madeline returned home that afternoon excited and already having planned a joint trip to a place called Diagon Alley with Ginny and Harry’s family. That evening Dudley went down to the local pub and took a very long swig of scotch before contemplating what to do next.


End file.
